The origins

of Sushi are not what you think.

Somewhere in the world is a mountain range of mountains so icy and frozen that the eye cannot tell whether it sees ice or stone. In these mountains is an ice valley, which is home to an ice castle, which is home to the ice king. The valley is also home to an ice lake. The lake isn't exactly liquid, but it's not completely frozen either. No one knows how deep the ice lake is, or how the ice fish got there, or how they survive, or even what sorts of fish these diverse species are. These fish are the sole source of sustenance for the ice king. He eats nothing else, and perhaps he doesn't need to eat anything at all. Hardy travellers were once lucky enough to stay in the ice castle, and observed the king eating his raw ice fish (would the ice king think of cooking, or even tolerate it?). These travellers almost died of ecstacy when permitted to eat the ice sushi themselves. On returning to Japan they refused to eat anything but raw fish, and so sushi was born.

We hadn't

meant to be nomads. It had looked like life was gearing towards settling down. A new move, a baby on the way, and so on. When the baby was born, we expected the usual late nights for a few months, with a routine to follow. We got the late nights at first, but the routine we settled into could never have been predicted.

We noticed that though she cried at home, she never did so when we were away from the house, no matter how noisy or strange the environment. As soon as we were somewhere new, she always calmed down, ready to fall asleep. We thought this was just a fluke, it would change with time. But it didn't. Instead, it became worse. She couldn't stand to be in the same place twice, and especially not the house. On weekends we spent time trying to find new places to visit, new places that were affordable, just so that she would be satisfied. Eventually we were spending more time in strange hotel rooms then at home, so we got rid of the apartment, and hit the road. I couldn't maintain my job with the hectic schedule, but the baby comes first, and so we were no longer tied to the area. And the further afield we went, the happier the baby became. We had arrived at the new routine, the routine of no routine.

Two merchants

travelled together in foreign lands, both engaging in trade. Both kept journals of their travels, and wrote down what they found most noteworthy. One merchant, a fishtrader wrote of the differences between the lands -- differences in the people, their customs, foods, clothes, their homes, and differences in the landscapes, plants, animals, weather patterns, and so on. The other merchant noted how similar all the lands were to one another -- each had its people, with their customs, foods, clothes, homes, and each region had plants, animals, and changes in weather.

Which merchant made the deeper observations?

The unhaunted mind

would make a good title of a book I think. But we could choose what it's about.

The book I've been reading "Riddley Walker" has been a letdown, despite a cult following, despite what I thought was a promising start. That doesn't mean that "The Unhaunted Mind" would be any better.

Oh, and while I'm writing: SCOPE ROMBARD.

Where is your harbor.

Now how old are you?

Quick

wit is not the truth. Nor is charm.

Achbar Echad

The mice worship Achbar Echad, the #1 mouse. Achbar Echad lives in the #1 mousehole, eats #1 cheese, and so on. He is alone among mice and has no equal, because he is the #1 mouse. You and I, we don't know our #s, but we might be the #434,612,938 and #243,942,695 mice.

Achbar Echad is the #1 mouse, but is he the first mouse? Or is there a #0 mouse -- a mouse before mice? Does mousehood precede mice?

What

could compel one to not go anywhere, just stay in the same place? There are things.

Thoughts today have shot past and through Boston a couple of times. That was a nice place. If anyone happens to read this, and also happens to be in Boston, say hi to the Charles river for me, and so on.

The drain

speaks for itself, me I say "..." and watch my words get sucked down. So much gravity somewhere below it, pulling everything down. There goes half my wardrobe, a table, books, flecks of paint, down, down, even my thoughts.

Ghost wisp

The clouds will not leave. They sit overhead waiting. "You have taken our chief; we will not leave until he is returned."

I don't know what they're talking about, but they won't believe it. "You have taken our chief."

If you can think what to do, please let me know. I haven't seen the sun in weeks now.

Ha ha ha

he laughed, ha ha!

The Canadian Mushroom Belt

extends over two thousand miles, stretching from Southern Ontario west to Alberta, ending just short of the Rockies. Across this area, a wide variety of mushrooms grow in abudndance. Residents are typically oblivious of the mushrooms, though in some communities youth play mushroom themed games such as PunchShroom, a variety of the game PunchBuggy (also known as SlugBug). A tourist industry devoted to seeing the mushroom belt is slowly growing, though these "shroomtrips" have so far been most popular with visitors from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

It is the time

when my eyelids come a drooping, and gravity tells me that I will belong to it even more for the next hours. It is getting to that time though its only 11:35 pm, still early really. But the days have been a bit long.

Typing seems as second nature, and I don't seem to really need to look at the keys, or to even think about where the letters are. Don't even need to think, much, about most of the words may be, but then I suppose the writing shows it.

I'm in a slight mood to keep on eating.

I think that memory and half memory has dominated the blog, partially because those things were there (the memories and half memories are in my mind, that is) but also because I wanted to avoid making this some chronicle of my current times. If not to write about the present, then there is always the past. The past and fantasy anyway.

But at this moment, there is no past, and not much of a present either (though much is going on, and life is far from empty). Not much of a present because basically, its all in my eyelids just now, and here they come a drooping.

Welcome to

the land of bicycles. Never mind the coming snows, never mind that the temperatures will drop and drop down. Do not attend to any of that. You are in the land of bicycles.

Walk down the street at night, you'll see two bicyclists zipping towards you. They politely line up and move to your left, their right.

Head over to the supermarket, with wife and daughter. Silent as can be they keep coming from behind you, riders on bicycles. You only hear them when, again, they politely pass you. This time treading on grass.

You are in the land of the bicycles. How long, how long till you have one too?

Harvest Moon

They had walked out to the grocery store to get a few snacks for the evening. Somehow it was dark by them time they ended up leaving the store. On their walk back she suddenly exclaimed "Oh, look!" and he looked and saw what she was pointing at. It was the moon hanging just above the trees, huge and orange, yet not quite full. Next night would probably be full moon. They decided they'd repeat their walk to catch the full harvest moon.

The next night they headed out at about the same time, walked towards the grocery store and then past it for a way. They looked back occasionally, but the moon wasn't there, wasn't rising in the expected spot. It wasn't anywhere else in the cloudless sky, and they still hadn't found it when they reached home.

"I know," she said, "lets go drive out into the country. Maybe we'll be able to see the moon out there."

He agreed so they got in the car, and drove out of town, on the same road leading past the grocery store. They took random turns onto smaller roads to try to get as far out into nothingness as possible. They looked up and around, but every time they failed to spy the moon.

They laughed about it and kept driving out further and further. As they grew tired they found themselves on a small rough empty road, surrounded by an empty barren field. They they drove on, becoming so tired that they hardly looked for the moon at all now, no longer looked at where they were going, and the small road had given way to a gravelly surface.

Suddenly they were driving up a steep hill, only rocks around them, the black sky somehow vivid. As they came up over the crest the view of the sky opened up, and they finally saw it in the night sky. [Not the moon, but something much larger, all green and blue. The earth itself.]

News item from the year 2053

Scientist report that they have developed a new form of light. Whereas ordinary light consists of photons, the new light is made up of phentons. Humans are unable to distinguish phenton from photon light. However, phenton light accelerates plant growth. According to Dr. Mao Frieder of Caltech, bamboo exposed to phenton light grows one inch every two minutes, a growth rate visible to the human eye.

Blog Envy

There is always room for new neuroses, new mental diseases.

The past

gets swept away, but lingers nonetheless in memory.

Do you (whoever you are) imagine your distant future? Do you have visions, however fleeting, of places you might like to go? Perhaps a boat trip never taken yet, but maybe one day. A mostly abandoned carnival town somewhere, with a long wide main street?

Religion

You'd never guess it from the way I write this blog, but I'd say that my true religion is 'Strunk & White'-ian.

Bergman

In some of those older Ingmar Berman movies the movie begins at some beach house, though a scanadanavian beach house, and people are pushing a boat back in from the water. Well, that it probably just how one of his movies begin, but lots of them seem to have coastal scenes. That movie scene may be the inspiration for my vision of launching a canoe into Lake Huron.